In the Syrian city of Ariha, the cherry trees are covered with deep red fruit. It is harvest time and the cherries are sweet, but no one comes to pick them. Two weeks ago, after the regime’s elite troops had transformed peaceful demonstrations in the nearby provincial capital Idlib into bloodbaths, two young men tried to save the cherry harvest. They loaded their small truck full of cherries and took off for the port city of Latakia in western Syria. They didn’t make it very far. A military patrol stopped the two men in front of a sugar refinery and shot them dead.

QUETTA, Pakistan — Police in the western Pakistani city of Quetta say a bomb and gunfire attack has targeted a paramilitary checkpoint, killing at least two passers-by and wounding four people, including a police officer. (more…)